LL swing for evaluation

[bob_r]

Hi Guys,

Well I've been on this site for some time trying to learn as much as I can to help my son. He has a great love of baseball and here is his swing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3rSt1Wb6TU

This is his natural swing. He has been very sucessful and hasn't had any coaching other than don't swing so hard or wait for the ball I figured if it isn't broke don't fix it. He's at a point where he is hitting a lot of homeruns but they are huge towering hits almost like a popup but they go far - i don't know if that's good or bad. I don't feel i'm qualified to give him any instruction, but I do pitch to him all the time. Any advice on his swing would be appreciated. BTW the video is from last year when he was 11.

[callyjr]

lower body looks pretty good, upper body has a good start, but will need some work when he starts seeing offspeed pitches ect....

He gets the front elbow locked out in the load and then keeps it that way throughout swing, he also lets the back elbow get ahead of the hands. Great looking swing for LL player.

Cally

[Mark H]

Big time bat drag defined as the top hand elbow leading the hands for more than one frame with the top hand forearm laid over. He's going to kill average pitching and struggle badly against high level pitching. Haven't counted frames but it's going to be about a 7 frame swing because it always is. If he wants to hit great high school pitching, he's going to need to get down to about five frames (frames refers to how many frames on a standard 30fps video the swing takes from bat head launch into the swing plane or heel plant till contact). Less is better. OTOH, if he's hitting as well as he wants to at the highest level he aspires to, why mess with it. Good athletic strong looking kid.

Study this link where they talk about bat drag. http://imageevent.com/siggy/hitting/...0&m=20&w=0&p=0

[J-MAC]

Notice how the back elbow is leading the hands, it should be the other way around.

[bob_r]

Notice how the back elbow is leading the hands, it should be the other way around.

Could this be the reason the ball goes really high?

[J-MAC]

Could this be the reason the ball goes really high?

yeah, it looks like the top candidate for hitting pop flys in that swing. Other things that might cause pop flys are overstriding and lunging at the ball.

[Mark H]

Could this be the reason the ball goes really high?

And far. Yes it could. But the game is going to $#@% when they start throwing hard, hitting spots and changing speeds. With this seven or eight frame swing, which I'd put money on without counting, he's going to need to start his swing with the ball about ten feet farther out from home plate against great high school pitching when he's older (someone want to check my math) than the five frame kid. This means he will get fooled A LOT more than a kid with a five frame swing who can wait that extra ten feet before making a decision. Maturity and strength will help make this swing quicker but not near enough to hit great pitching.

Thanks for the video help J-Mac.

[bob_r]

And far. Yes it could. But the game is going to $#@% when they start throwing hard, hitting spots and changing speeds. With this seven or eight frame swing, which I'd put money on without counting, he's going to need to start his swing with the ball about ten feet farther out from home plate (someone want to check my math) than the five frame kid. This means he will get fooled A LOT more than a kid with a five frame swing who can wait that extra ten feet before making a decision. Thanks for the video help.

This clip was taking when we were joking around and I pitch slow(although I'm trying to throw fast) so it could be a slower swing. I will find a game clip and count the frames. A comment I hear a lot his how fast his swing is. I'm suprised I understand all the comments you guys made, although I can't recognize it untill you pointed it out. I really appreciate the feed back and will look to correct the elbow and bat drag first.

[mightylakers]

Mark, how do you get the frame by frame view

on youtube? How many frames do you think Gary's swing had?

And far. Yes it could. But the game is going to $#@% when they start throwing hard, hitting spots and changing speeds. With this seven or eight frame swing, which I'd put money on without counting, he's going to need to start his swing with the ball about ten feet farther out from home plate against great high school pitching when he's older (someone want to check my math) than the five frame kid. This means he will get fooled A LOT more than a kid with a five frame swing who can wait that extra ten feet before making a decision. Maturity and strength will help make this swing quicker but not near enough to hit great pitching.

Thanks for the video help J-Mac.

[Mark H]

One of the video wizards would need to post it in a form we can frame by frame to be sure. I'm saying it's seven or a little more because swings that have this flaw always are in my experience. As to the comments from the onlookers, I'm sure it IS fast at the finish. What it is not, is quick from decision to contact. As the guy on the commercials says, "I guarantee it". Rather than figuring out how to deal with this by yourself, I suggest getting Englishbey's dvd's for drills to deal with it, understanding to implement the drills and understanding to avoid the pitfalls along the way. You are going to face a difficult task because in his world this is a perfectly rational way to solve the problem of how to hit the ball far. Taking this away from him is going to be like taking a bone away from a dog. If you don't want to get snarled at, you better offer a steak in return. IOW, he needs to understand the problem, adopt the goal of changing in order to be successful when he's older, and buy into the solution. That's the steak you offer in return for the bone he has now. The bone being the ability to hit the ball far which bone he no doubt really likes. There's another way to hit the ball far while being much quicker but almost nothing he's done so far is going to feel the same as the new way and it's going to likely be a lot of hard work to change. Good news is, he's young.

[Drill]

were they lob pitchs? I hope so or he has a upper cut.

throw him some fast ball and redo the video


imho,

drill

[Mark H]

Doesn't matter. I promise you you can throw bb's at him and this will be his pattern. Swing plane angle might change but that won't get him to a quick swing.

[MSandman]

Depending exactly when you start counting frames (Mark?) - heel plant or when weight is transferred onto flat front heel or when bat starts moving... it does indeed look like a 6 or 7-frame swing.

Converted at www.catchvideo.net: http://members.cox.net/sandmanbaseball/bob_r.mp4

[Mark H]

Thanks Sandman. That's actually pretty impressive quickness for bat drag this bad. Must be a pretty strong athlete with a good ability to "turn the system on". Still a frame to frame and a half away from success against good pitching which might as well be the Grand Canyon. Now if football is his thing and he's just playing baseball to hang with his buddies in Little League, leave him alone.

[bob_r]

were they lob pitchs? I hope so or he has a upper cut.

throw him some fast ball and redo the video


imho,

drill

Yes they were lob pitches, but if I had to characterize is general swing pattern I would say it is more upper cut than level.